“The incident!” he roared. “He went crazy over something and hauled off and hit her. She said it would be on TV, wanted us to know first. She said she was frightened of him-it’s the same old story every week in the ER, but to have your own daughter-you said you were a detective, right? Miss…”
“Connor. Yes, sir, I am. And I know about domestic violence.”
“Domestic violence,” said Boehlinger. “More PC crap. All we do is rename things. It’s wife beating! I’ve been married thirty-four years, never laid a finger on my wife! First he woos her like Prince Charming, then it all goes to hell in a handbasket and he’s Mr. Hyde-she was frightened of him, Miss Connor. Scared clean out of her mind. That’s why she left him. We begged her to come back to Ohio, not to stay in that psychotic swamp of yours. But she didn’t want to, loved the movies, had her goddamn career! Now look where it got her-oh Jesus God, my little baby girl, my baby my baby my baby!”
CHAPTER
13
Sharla Straight, queasy, still half stoned, sat on the couch in the trailer’s front room as Buell “Motor” Moran ate cold beef stew out of the can and finished the last beer. She was still sore. He’d been rough with her, doing her from the back, clawing her buttocks. Her thoughts cleared partially and she pictured Billy’s face.
Her sweet little- Motor grunted and destroyed her thoughts.
He liked doing it that way because he could stand, not put weight on his hands or strain his back. The only benefit to her was she didn’t have to see his face.
Even from the back, he smelled. Like unwashed clothes.
Her whole life smelled like unwashed clothes.
Her head hurt; tequila wasn’t good for her, specially the cheap stuff Motor got at the Stop amp; Shop. Beer was better, beer and weed the best of all because it made her feel far away from things, but they were out of weed and he hogged all the beer.
He was a hog-one big mean, hairy pig, even bigger than Daddy. Remembering his nails digging into her hips, knowing they were black around the edges, she kept thinking: Dirty, he’s dirty, I’m dirty.
Did she have to end up like this, or was there some other way?
She didn’t know, she just didn’t know.
The hot, dead haze that passed for air in the trailer felt smothering. The piece of cloth she’d nailed up to cover the small window over the bed had fallen half loose, but all she could see was a square of black. Everyone in the park was asleep, must be late-what time was it, anyway?
What time was it where Billy was? If he was somewhere and not Four months since that terrible day, and when she let it, the memory stuck her like a knife.
Worrying about him lying in some ditch.
Or cut up by some sicko.
Or run over by a truck on some lonely road. That small, skinny white body, so small, he’d always been so small, except when he was a baby and had that fat face… ’cause she nursed him, she didn’t want to stop nursing him, even when nothing came out and her nipples bled, but the nuns made her stop, one of them, the tall one whose name she forgot ordering her, “Stop, girl. You’ll have plenty of opportunity to sacrifice.’’
Billy gone. It had taken her almost two days to realize it was really true.
He wasn’t there when she and Motor got home that night, but sometimes he took walks by himself, so she just fell asleep, not waking up till ten and then she figured he’d gone to school. When it got dark the next day, she knew something was wrong, but she was already stoned and couldn’t move.
The next morning, no one to bring her instant coffee, she realized it had been way too long. Like a big knife, the panic cut through her and she started screaming silently to herself, Oh no, can’t be-where, why, who, why?
She never said anything out loud, never showed the way she felt to Motor. To anyone.
That day, after Motor went out, she left the trailer for the first morning in maybe a month, the sun hurting her eyes, aware now that her dress was dirty and one of her shoes had a big hole in it.
Looking all around Watson; walking till her feet hurt.
A real hot day, plenty of birds out, people she never really looked at, cats and dogs and more people. She covered every field and grove, the stores, the Stop amp; Shop, the Sunnyside, even the school, because maybe he just spent the night somewhere and went to school by himself, even though that made no sense at all-why would he do that?
But lots of times things didn’t make sense; she’d learned a long time ago not to wait for things to make sense.
So she kept walking, looking, checking it all out. Buying a Pepsi at the Stop along with a Payday bar, just to keep fueled; those peanuts were good energy.
Not asking anyone if they’d seen him, just looking, because she didn’t want anyone to think she was that bad of a mother.
Not telling the sheriff, for sure, because he might get suspicious, go through the trailer, find the stash.
That night, she told Motor, and he said, Big deal. It was just a fucking runaway situation, happened all the time, hell, he’d run away when he was fifteen after beating the shit out of his old man, and hadn’t she done it, too? Everyone ran. Finally the little shit had developed some balls.
But Billy, only twelve, looking younger, so small-that wasn’t the same thing as her running or a big hog like Motor, no way.
The day she looked everywhere, no one asked what she was doing, where Billy was. Not the first day, the second, the third, never. Not once.
Four months now, still no questions. Not the school, the neighbors-for sure no friends, because Billy never had friends, probably her fault, because when he was little she was living all by herself out in that even worse trailer with some people she was still trying to forget about. Man, she’d been wasted; she didn’t think anyone had hurt Billy.
He’d always been a quiet kid, even as a baby, so quiet, you’d never know he was even there…
Tears flowed from deep inside her head, flooding her closed eyelids, swelling them, and she had to open them a little to let the water out.
When she did, she was almost surprised to find herself back in the trailer, nothing changed, seeing the dim outlines of the kitchenette, Motor sitting there stuffing his face, dirty dishes, sour, more sour, everything sour.
Where was her little man?
The day after he disappeared, she had a nightmare of it being some dark, damp place, a torture chamber, some crazy person finding him walking in the groves, one of those guys you hear about, cruising near schools, other places, snatching kids, doing what they want with ’em, cutting ’em. She woke up shaking and sweating, her stomach burning like she’d swallowed fire.
Motor snored as she watched the sun lighten the cloth over the trailer window. Too afraid to move. Or think. Then thinking about the torture chamber and getting sick to her stomach.
Rushing to the john and throwing up, trying to do it quietly so as not to wake Motor.
Every night for a week she woke up sweating from the dreams, careful not to move or say anything to wake up Motor.
Sick with guilt and fear, the horrible person she was, the worst mother in the world, never shoulda been a mother, never shoulda been born herself, all she caused in the world was misery and sin, she deserved to be pronged from the back by a hog…
The nightmares went away when she found the Tampax money missing and knew what had happened.
Escape. A plan.
She’d saved that money for a long time, keeping it from Motor and all the others before him, her own stash.
For what?
